Merchant ship classification in high-resolution SAR image based on joint superstructure scattering features.

Ship classification has long been a challenging task in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) applications. With the improvement of SAR resolution, it has gradually become possible based on high-resolution SAR images. This letter presents a joint feature representation method for characterizing the superstructure scattering features of merchant ships, and then a hierarchical scheme for classifying merchant ships in high-resolution SAR images based on integrated macro and detailed superstructure features is proposed. Comprehensive experiment on three types of high-resolution SAR samples demonstrates that the proposed features and method have the ability to improve the performance of merchant ship classification in SAR images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]